


Simple Kindness

by bold_seer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ficlet, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: You couldn’t always tell from the outside when a man was a monster.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brachylagus_fandom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brachylagus_fandom/gifts).



> _‘I said I wonder what’s wrong with Lupin, and you -’_  
>  _‘Well, isn’t it_ obvious _?’ said Hermione, with a look of maddening superiority._ ( _PoA_ Ch. 12, ‘The Patronus’)

It was a feeling she was used to in class, when she’d worked something out that no one else had – and really, the answer was obvious – she remembered the very page and it all made sense now, everything – how could they not see it?

Oh, sometimes she sounded insufferable even to herself.

But her mind was buzzing, restless, bursting with the newfound knowledge, or her well-founded suspicions. She had to confront him. She had to _know_. 

Gathering all her Gryffindor courage, she spoke - _Professor Lupin_ \- her voice as bold in the empty classroom as her fast-beating heart. But he didn’t seem to have noticed her, as he stood behind the desk, lost in his thoughts, to something or nothing in particular.

For a moment, she studied him: the frayed robes, the weary slope of his shoulders and his thin arms. You couldn’t always tell from the outside when a man was a monster, but with a fierce and sudden certainty she decided - the monster in her textbook was a man.

It’s not like any of them were, strictly speaking, the kind of _people_ she’d grown up with. Three years in, still a stranger in this world in some ways, to things so natural to those who’d grown up knowing witches and wizards and magical creatures even existed. She’d spent all that time at the library in her first year, only to trip up in everyday conversations.

Then Professor Lupin turned towards her, seemingly shrugging off the years he carried like a burden. There was only a kind, open and attentive face, without any preconception, prepared to listen to whatever troubled her.

All the ideals of her House disappeared, and she hadn’t the heart to say anything.


End file.
